due South snippet: "Strings of Hair, Pegs of Bone"

[luzula]

Title: Strings of Hair, Pegs of Bone
Fandom: due South
Characters: Fraser, Vecchio (implied Fraser/Victoria)
Rating: PG-13 for creepy folktales
Length: 370 words
Summary: Fraser tells stories in the night.
Notes: Set pre-Victoria's Secret. This was meant to be for the dsc6dsnippets challenge, inspired by "harp" and "bark", but alas, it grew too long and I couldn't trim it down. And yes, I know, I'm obsessed with the Child ballads.

Ray sighed. "Three hours left."

"And no sign of Zimmerman." Fraser looked at Ray, slouched in the driver's seat of the Riv. "Want me to tell you a story?"

"Sure." Ray looked out into the cold winter night and shivered. "Just--no Inuit stories, okay?"

"All right." Fraser dredged his mind for European folktales.

"Once upon a time, there were two sisters. One had hair as the darkest coal, and the other was fair as the day." Absurd dichotomy, really. Still, he saw the dark hair swirling in his mind.

"They were washing down by the river--" Fraser told of how they quarreled over a man, and how the dark sister pushed the other in, how she was carried by the river, how she drowned, how the harper found her body. How he shaped it into a harp. "He played the harp. He played his fingers to the quick, on the strings of fair hair, the pegs of fingerbone."

Ray stirred. "What's with the severed fingers? Why are there severed fingers in all your stories?"

"Not all," Fraser protested. Though yes, there was Sedna and the chopped-off fingers, turning into seals. He went on.

"He could play the bark from the hardest trees, and the water from the river, and the child from the mother's breast. Such was the power of the harp. They came to the dark sister's wedding, and he played at the feast. But the harp had a will of its own, and told the story of her sister's betrayal."

Fraser fell silent.

"So what happened to her? The dark sister?" Ray prompted.

Fraser finished the story, strangely reluctant. "She was burned at the stake."

"Jeez, talk about creepy. Don't you know any upbeat stories?" Ray sat up, pulled the blanket around his shoulders.

"Apparently not." Fraser sighed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you uneasy."

They fell silent again. He'd told Ray a true story, once, but Ray had fallen asleep, and he didn't think he had the heart to tell that story again. So instead, he told folktales about dark-haired women. Not that this one had anything to do with her, really.

He closed his eyes, saw again the dark hair swirling in his mind.

Comments

[seascribble]

I like your obsession. It makes for such good, involved due South fic. :) I love how Fraser substitutes folktales for true stories.

And on a lighter note, I have a lot of love for Fraser offering to tell stories on stakeouts too.

[luzula]

Thanks! I'm glad to put my geekiness to good use.

I love how Fraser substitutes folktales for true stories.

So true. Oh, Fraser. ♥

[laurie_ky]

I know that song. This was wonderful. I particularly liked Ray's comment about the severed fingers, the memory of Frazer telling Ray about Victoria (I sort of remembered that scene, after reading that line) and Frazer being oblique about his feelings about Victoria, casting her in place of the dark-haired woman.

Laurie

[luzula]

Thank you! And thanks for the detailed feedback. : )

[baronjanus]

Ouch. Beautiful story.

[luzula]

Thank you! : )

[jesse_the_k]

Excellent. I can hear Ray & Benton's voices. I can see the severed fingers. And I can't not see the dark swirling hair.

[luzula]

My job is done! Severed fingers, brrrr.

[scribe]

Oh, this is wonderful. Creepy and foreshadowy and sad and very, very Fraser.

[luzula]

Oh, thank you! Creepy and foreshadowy, that was pretty much my goal here.

[hazelwho]

Beautifully written, and the last two paragraphs killed me. Oh, Fraser!

[luzula]

Thanks! Ray falling asleep during that story is heartbreaking in itself.

[mergatrude]

Of course Fraser, the depressed romantic, can only tell unhappy stories. *pets him*

But really, the number of upbeat folk tales is fairly small. Even if they're funny, it's at some poor person's expense, and Fraser is not mean.

But this is lovely and evocative. *pets Fraser*

[luzula]

True, many folk tales are pretty tragic. I remember being a kid and listening to these kinds of ballads--like, there's a Swedish one where a woman was cursed by her step-mother to be pregnant for seven years! And then her twin children were born seven years old already and took revenge on the step-mother by frying her "like a fish over a bed of coals". Ack.

And thanks! : )

[vickitub]

Wo that was creepy, fab work

[luzula]

Thanks! : )

[ride_4ever]

*admires the evocative fic*

Plus that, to me, is one of the most troubling moments in canon, Ray having fallen asleep during the one true tale.

*yearns to console Fraser*

[luzula]

Thanks! And yeah, I feel so bad for Fraser at that moment. But to be fair, he kind of does the same thing to Ray K in Burning Down the House--Ray pours out his life story and Fraser's not even listening.

[garonne.livejournal.com]

As far as I'm concerned, there can never be too many due South/Child fusions! I loved this, and I felt so very sorry for Fraser at the end there...

[luzula]

Thanks! So glad you liked it. : ) And yeah, I'm lucky folk songs are so easily worked into due South.